Web 2.0 Critic Andrew Keen On The BBC Layoffs

BBC World News, Andrew Keen, citizen journalism, job cuts

The BBC recently announced 2,500 jobs will be cut over the next six years.

You just can’t cut to the bone. If you do away with journalists completely, then there no longer is content.

Andrew Keen

Date Posted: 11/05/07

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I’ve been very busy since I published my book The Cult Of The Amateur: How Today's Internet Is Killing Our Culture. It’s been very controversial, and I’ve had many debates all over the world. One of the reasons I wrote the book was because I was concerned about the implications of Web 2.0 and the rise of amateur content. Recently the BBC announced it will be laying off 2,500 people over the next six years. Professional journalists are the only valuable source for news, but I don’t think journalists have some sort of intrinsic right to employment and I don’t think cutting people is necessarily a bad thing. Let me explain…

There are two sides to the BBC: there’s the traditional news and entertainment media – high quality and reliable content - and then there’s the user-generated media and popular reality television shows, which come from the ‘cult of the amateur’ side. My concern is that what’s being cut is the high quality journalism.

The BBC is investing heavily in digital media more and more, which is not necessarily a bad thing. I’m not against the Internet or digital content, provided that content is authoritative and comes from credible sources. What’s still not clear at the BBC is where the content is coming from.

The jobs being cut are said to be redundant. I don’t know what they mean by the term ‘redundant.’ A job is never completely redundant. I think perhaps they use the term polemically.

Since it’s not a for-profit organization, the question of the redundancy of journalists or programs is subjective. What makes one BBC show or employee more valuable than the next? It’s a matter of public debate and controversy. I would argue that news journalists are not redundant, provided they are objectively covering what’s happening in the world and educating people.

The BBC doesn’t have a traditional commercial model. They’re still financed and subsidized by licensing fees, so one can’t use this problem at the BBC as an example of the demise of traditional commercial media. The BBC is very different.

The British government reduced the licensing fees that went toward programming. I think the viewers should have to pay a high licensing fee, because it’s in return for high quality media. However, even if you cut that fee, that doesn’t mean the content should be free. It could mean that the content is paid for either by the user or having advertising subsidize it.